A blog about American History, and the development of a great Nation

Something for the weekend. One of the more bizarre songs to arise from our Civil War: Poor Kitty Popcorn. Sung by Bobby Horton who has a talent for resurrecting even the most obscure of Civil War tunes.

Something for the weekend. The Reluctant Conscript performed by Bobby Horton who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War era music to modern audiences. This song is typical of the type of humorous songs sung by soldiers on both sides. Civil War soldiers endured hardships and casualties that modern students of that conflict can only regard as appalling. However, the amazing thing is the good humor that those very brave men also displayed, often directed against themselves. We stand on the shoulders on the giants, and among those giants are a lot of 18-20 young men clad in blue and gray, many of whom did not get any older, and who overwhelmingly met their fates with courage and a type of laughing gallantry that is all too foreign to our debased times.

Something for the weekend. Stand Up For Uncle Sam My Boys sung by Bobby Horton who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences. A pro-Union song written in 1861 by that tireless writer of Civil War tunes George F. Root. Sadly its patriotism may seem over the top to modern audiences. Not so to most of the fighting men on both sides during the Civil War who liked their songs about the War to be lively and very patriotic.

Something for the weekend. Lincoln and Liberty Too, the most stirring campaign song in American history, sung by Bobby Horton who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences. Mr. Lincoln’s birthday is on Monday which this year coincides with the state holiday in Illinois. I always close down the law mines on that day. Lincoln used to say that Henry Clay was his ideal of a statesman and for me Abraham Lincoln has always filled that role. Presidents come and Presidents go, but Washington and Lincoln remain, the fixed stars of the better angels of our natures.

Something for the weekend. O’, I’m a Good Old Rebel by Major James Randolph. When it was published in Louisiana in 1866 it bore an ironic dedication to Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. This rendition is sung by Bobby Horton, who has fought a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences. It is the most moving rendition I have heard of this song, with Horton conveying well the bitterness and despair felt by almost all Confederates after the conclusion of the War. The author served on the staff of General J.E.B. Stuart. The song has always been popular in the South and was a favorite of Queen Victoria’s son, the future Edward VII, who referred to it as “that fine American song with cuss words in it.” (more…)

Something for the weekend. Kentucky Battle Song, sung by Bobby Horton who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences.. The Civil War in border states was often literally a war of brother against brother. Some 100,000 men of the Blue Grass State fought for the Union, while 25,000-40,000 served the Confederacy. Written in 1863, lyrics and music by Charlie L. Ward, the song celebrates the Orphan Brigade and other Kentucky Confederate units who left their homes in Union controlled Kentucky to battle for the South.

Something for the weekend. A moving rendition of the hymn What Wondrous Love Is This by Bobby Horton, who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War era music to modern audiences. The lyrics were first published in 1811 during the Second Great Awakening, a huge religious revival that swept the nation. The hymn was written either by that most prolific song writer Anonymous or by Alexander Means, the historical record is unclear. The tune comes from that hit of 1701,The Ballad of Captain Kidd.

Few hymns are better than this one in powerfully, and simply, conveying the eternal truth of Christianity: God, the great I AM, became one of us, walked and taught among us, and died for us.

Here is another rendition I have always liked, combining the hymn with another work of art that wordlessly conveys the core of Christianity, the Pieta: (more…)

Something for the weekend. A Confederate paean to The Infantry sung by Bobby Horton, who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War music to modern audiences. After the Civil War, a veteran of the conflict, I can’t recall his name, said that with Confederate infantry and Union artillery there was no position on Earth that he could not take.

After all, I think Forrest as the most remarkable man our ‘Civil War’ produced on either side.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Something for the weekend. General Forrest, a song saluting General Nathan Bedford Forrest, sung by Bobby Horton who has waged a one man crusade to bring Civil War songs to modern audiences.

Without a doubt the outstanding cavalryman of the War, Forrest is also easily the most controversial figure in the Civil War, probably the most controversial figure in American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest has always been the subject of fierce debate. Self-made millionaire who rose from poverty with much of his money made as a slaver trader; a semi-literate whose tactics and strategies as the most successful cavalry commander of the Civil War are still studied at military academies around the world; a brilliant general celebrated by the South and condemned by the North as the perpetrator of a massacre at Fort Pillow; a man who killed in combat 31 Union soldiers in the War but who after the War constantly had former Union soldiers visit him to shake his hand; and a racist who helped found the Ku Klux Klan after the War, but who also made a remarkable speech near the end of his life. (more…)